Foretold in smoke

Foretold in smoke chapter 4

Bryson D. 1/5 Stars

This is why I don’t trust hippy-dippy, twinkle-dust, voo-doo garbage. Creepy art, obnoxious music, and some old hag just getting off on telling people how terrible their life is going to be. And no refund policy? Well, f*** you.

I know your type. You’re all the same. You come to me, seeking something you believe life has withheld from you. Arrogance hangs on you like a garment; you wear disdain like a second skin. You burst through my doorway, ignoring the closed sign in the window, insisting you just need a few minutes from this crazy lady and her crystal ball.

Your eyes adjust to the dimly lit room, and you squint at the artwork on the wall. You recoil, unsettled by its abstraction: its unorthodoxy disgusts you, makes you squirm. You cover your nose and cough against the cloud of bitter smoke hanging in the air, swishing your arms like an aggravated primate. The twanging of unfamiliar instruments rises above the silence, warbling from a hidden speaker. The sound is eerie, foreign, and makes goose-flesh ripple across your arms. The stock-image experience you anticipated is something altogether different—it’s alive, sinister, and it smells like fire.You are rot—an infection that will spread across all your days. Everything you touch will wither and die, and you can only blame yourself.

My words are not a hex on your soul, I don’t speak out of malice; I simply show you what you already know.

I do not spin the threads of fate. I have no blade to sever their fibers.

But occasionally, I test the threads and hold a flame beneath the strands to watch and see what burns.